


Inappropriate Liaisons

by foodaddict



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars - Episode VII, Star Wars - Episode VIII, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Ben is a dick, But Not a Dick of Kylo Proportions, CHAPTER-SPECIFIC TAGS PLEASE READ, F/M, Governess Tropes, Inspired by Jane Eyre, Resolved Sexual Tension, Reylo - Freeform, Slow Burn, That Came Out Dirtier Than I Thought It Would, Unresolved Sexual Tension, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-02
Updated: 2018-12-23
Packaged: 2019-09-05 18:30:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16816111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foodaddict/pseuds/foodaddict
Summary: Benjamin Organa Solo is many things: successful businessman, art connoisseur, grudging philanthropist—but he is absolutely terrible at being a father. Saddled abruptly with an eleven-year-old with an attitude problem, he dials the number of a boarding school and ends up with a nanny who pushes his buttons in a dangerous way.





	1. The Wrong Foot

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stories_in_my_head](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stories_in_my_head/gifts).



> So I have a new fic that I'm giving as a present to a dear reader who constantly checks to make sure that I'm still alive. I hope you like it, stories_in_my_head! <3 
> 
> Specific warnings for this chapter: **accidents, injuries, and lots of foul language.**

Rey Niima takes a deep breath, savouring the unique smell of earth and pine that characterizes fall in Takodana. It has been a little over ten years since she was first introduced to it, but she knows she will never tire of Takodana’s most glorious season.

The trees that aren’t pines are covered in curtains of yellow and red, the occasional crabapples and rosehips arrayed in heavy bunches that almost beg to be picked. The morning mist is almost completely gone, but Rey still spots wreaths of it wrapped along the heavy forest on either side. If she didn’t have an appointment, she’d be romping through the woods. To make up for the lack of that indulgence, she nearly skips along the quiet country road, invigorated by the crisp, cool air and the gentle autumn sun.

She has more to be excited about than the lovely weather. If anything, the lovely weather is a good sign. Rey knows she is probably being ridiculous, but she is absolutely certain that it means that things will go well.

As a tutor, relentless optimism had been one of her best traits. Maz had handed Rey some of the very worst students at Rosley Hall and Rey had risen to the occasion every single time. Most of the children in their care at Rosley were unhappy, and being unhappy made children difficult. Rey remembered enough of her first year in Maz’s care to know that unhappy, difficult children acted out when they thought it would get them what they really wanted.

And what most children really wanted was unbelievably simple yet heartbreakingly difficult to get.

Rey doesn’t know much about Kaydel Organa Solo, but she would bet her first paycheck that the eleven-year-old she was to be a nanny for wouldn’t be very different from the children at Rosley Hall.

After all, Rey had gotten the job because Benjamin Organa Solo, Kaydel’s obscenely wealthy but incredibly busy father, had called Maz asking for her to take Kaydel on. Why Maz had deferred accepting her for that year was a mystery to Rey, but Maz had instead referred Mr. Solo to Rey, and Rey isn’t about to complain when that referral had translated into an eye-popping job offer.

Rey has never been a nanny before, but she _had_ helped Maz care for the younger children even before she’d graduated, and she’d continued to help out throughout her time in community college. Nurturing one child for a year—the stipulated term of her contract—surely would not require a separate set of skills. Part of her plan is to get her teacher’s license within that period so that she can land professional teaching engagements in future.

But for now, the job at Renwick’s Seat is her undeniably rosy prospect.

She is so lost in her thoughts that she doesn’t hear the roar of the car rounding the blind curb behind her.

*

Benjamin Organa Solo is having a terrible day.

It isn’t much of a headline, because for accuracy’s sake it’s really more of a terrible _year_ , but it feels important to acknowledge it.

Maybe then whatever higher power that has it out for him will finally let up.

He gropes for the tumbler full of coffee in the holder to his right, guzzling nearly half of it before he sets it back down. It’s not the Finca El Injerto that Hux insists on stocking their office pantries with, but Ben’s weird about his coffee. As fine as his taste runs when it comes to most other things, when it comes to coffee he likes the industrial blend that tastes like diesel and gives his mother heart palpitations.

It’s the only thing that works when he’s hungover _and_ sleep-deprived.

He should probably have turned down Poe’s invitation to get a few drinks in Uscru. Ben has known Poe for fourteen years and “a few drinks” has always meant either projectile-vomit levels of inebriation or get-to-a-clinic levels of debauchery. On rare occasions, it means both.

Thankfully, Ben had apparently only indulged in the debauchery. There were probably all sorts of other fluids on his suit, but puke mercifully wasn’t one of them.

Still, he feels like shit—and not just literally. The responsible thing to have done would have been to drive to Takodana after work in time to tuck his daughter in. That way he’d have had time to really talk to her about the nanny who was coming in that morning.

But he’d been wound too tight all week, caught up in mergers and acquisitions and all the things he was good at but that Kaydel didn’t see as important. He’d wanted a few hours just for himself, just for him to pretend that he was still just Ben Solo, “chief sexecutive officer,” as Poe had stupidly slurred the night before—not Ben Solo, solo parent.

Now he’s running late to meet the nanny that Maz bullied him into hiring, and what kind of impression was _that_ going to make? The old biddy would likely throw her hands up and walk out on him.

He steps on the accelerator, confident enough in his skill with vehicles to know that he can maneuver the Takodana roads. The mountainous lake country has famously steep inclines and narrow turns that follow the terrain, but Ben has a talent for things with wheels and things with steering wheels.

It’s a miracle that he doesn’t crash straight into the mountainside in order to avoid the little girl standing in the middle of the road as he rounds the curb.

*

It happens so fast that it will take Rey days to piece everything together. One minute she is turning to look for the source of that hideous screech—she sees a flash of black metal—and the next she is lying on her front, winded.

She had thrown herself out of the way in time—she must have. There’s pain all over her body, but the fact that she can feel _anything_ must be a good thing. Rey takes a deep breath and tries to focus, relief mingling with panic and cutting through her shock.

When it feels like she can breathe, she pushes herself up onto her hands. Just like that, she knows every single place where she’s hurt as fresh bursts of sensation lance through her.

The new grey jacket she bought to celebrate landing the job is ruined, the right sleeve torn to reveal a nasty scrape. There are scratches all over her palms and fingers as well, and as she pushes herself carefully into a sitting position her favorite cherry red dress rides up to reveal the unfortunate state of her knees. Her shaking fingers poke at the road burn, trying to assess the extent of the damage.

_“What in the actual fuck?!”_

Rey winces at the coarse language. She’s heard much, much worse when she was much, much younger, but she’s been cloistered away for a while, it seems. It’s not the profanity that worries her so much as the tone. She looks up in time to see the towering stranger slam the door of his car closed with such force that Rey is surprised the windows don’t shatter. He stomps towards her, a giant in black, whipping his aviators off so that he can glare at her more effectively.

“What the _fuck_ do you think you’re doing?” he snarls at her, stopping an inch from her feet.

_Oh, I don’t know, just sitting here, bleeding._

That resentful, sarcastic voice has been in her head for as long as she can remember. For a little while, that voice had ruled her—until Plutt had taken his fists to her and she’d learned that it was smarter, if less satisfying, to be quiet. Then Rey had come into Maz’s care, and she had learned that there was a time and place for that voice.

Sitting in the mud, scrapes and bruises blooming over her skin, while a tall, threatening man yells at her is certainly not the time and place.

“I’m sorry,” she says as evenly as she can, meeting his blistering stare directly even though his scowl makes her want to cringe. “I was distracted and didn’t see you.”

To her satisfaction, the quiet apology brings him up short. The man’s generous lips clamp shut. His jaw is still clenched and he is still looking at her like he’d like to run her over—on purpose this time—but he takes a deep breath in through his tall, hawkish nose, and when he lets it out in a sigh the tension in the air slips down by several significant notches.

He crouches down abruptly, making Rey squeak in alarm and try to scramble back.

“Oh, grow the fuck up,” he snaps at her, grabbing her bare ankle. The heat of his massive hand shoots straight up her leg. “I’m trying to see where you’re hurt.”

Rey flushes, horrified by how he can see right through her and unnerved by the effect of his touch. She’s utterly inexperienced with men, but she knows that it’s bizarre to feel like her bones are sizzling. Mortified, she does her best to keep still as he gives her one more glare for good measure before going back to looking over her injuries.

With him no longer swearing at her, Rey is surprised by the realization that he’s an attractive man. His features are odd, somewhat uneven, but put together they make a compelling case for beauty. His hair is undeniably beautiful. Dark and a little too long, it falls over his brow and curls over his awkwardly large ears in perfect waves. His eyes flash up to her face, and the burning intensity of them makes her stomach flop uncomfortably—even if those eyes are suspiciously red-rimmed and surrounded by grooves of tension. 

“Did you hit your head?” he asks gruffly.

Rey pauses, then shakes her head. “I managed to protect it, I think.” The long gash in her right forearm had to come from somewhere.

His frown deepens and his lips purse, but he says nothing. This time Rey only flinches when he gingerly reaches for her right arm. It’s awkward and it’s difficult to balance on only one arm, so she tries to sit up a little straighter. It brings them far too close together—she can feel the heat of his chest and the smell of him—leather and spice and tobacco. She freezes, gut clenching, while a tingling starts under her skin.

The stranger is still as well, his head bent. Rey sees his jaw work before she hears him clear his throat.

“You have some pretty deep scrapes and you’ll have bruises in a few hours,” the man concludes after a second, sitting back on his haunches and releasing her arm. His gaze stays averted before he slips his shades back on; once they’re perched comfortably over his nose, he faces her squarely. “But if you’re not dizzy and didn’t hit your head, we don’t have to go to a hospital. I can take you to my house and we can get you cleaned up.”

“Oh no,” Rey says at once, the tingling intensifying at the suggestion of going to this man’s house. Maybe she hadn’t hit her head, but she was likely still in shock. “Thank you, but no. I was supposed to meet my employer today and I can’t be late.”

She can tell that the glare is back, even though it’s behind the protective lenses of his sunglasses. His rough tone stings as much as the scrapes he mentioned. “Like showing up looking like you’re fresh from a car crash is the best way to make a good first impression. Stop being an idiot and let me take care of you.”

Rey’s mouth drops open. All her painful self-consciousness and the distinct awareness she has of him are swallowed up by her force of temper.

“I look like I’m fresh from a car crash _because of you,”_ she snaps furiously.

“You shouldn’t have been walking around in the middle of the road!” he growls, apparently not used to have someone pushing back against his horrible behaviour.

“You shouldn’t have been speeding!”

Rey is braced for his comeback, which is why she experiences an inappropriate rush of smug pleasure when his mouth shuts again before he lets out another aggravated sigh.

“I was supposed to be meeting someone, too,” he admits, in such a grudging tone that Rey wonders if she should take that as an apology. Before she can ask, the stranger sighs and runs a hand through his hair. The sight of that long-fingered hand carding through those perfect locks annoys Rey so much that she refuses to see the weariness of the gesture.

A beat of wary silence passes between them before the man pushes slowly to his feet. He’s towering over her again, a dark figure blocking out the sun.

“Let me clean you up,” he offers again, extending a hand to her. “After, I’ll drive you to wherever you need to be and explain to your boss about why you’re late.”

It’s a fair offer, all things considered, and for the first time since she’s met him there’s no anger in the man’s voice. Slightly mollified by this, Rey takes his hand and tries not to pay attention to how it engulfs hers, how the ease with which he pulls her to her feet makes her stomach do flip-flops.

The man stares down at their hands for a moment before letting her go and turning his back to her.

“Come on,” he says in a tone that’s short but somehow no longer hostile. “I don’t live far from here and it should take ten, maybe fifteen minutes to patch you up.”

She totters after him obediently for a few seconds before she sees the car that he’s leading her to. Because that is _most definitely_ an Aston Martin, tires smoldering slightly as it sits perched awkwardly at the edge of the road, having demolished a number of unfortunate blackberry bushes.

Her eyes skitter towards her unlikely companion and she notices for the first time that despite his somewhat disheveled appearance, he’s wearing an impressively cut suit. It fits him beautifully, emphasizing the breadth of his shoulders and the sharp nip towards his waist . . . and Rey refuses to look any lower.

“Hey!” There’s impatience in his tone again, and Rey wants to kick herself for softening towards him without even noticing that she’s doing it. Her attacker/rescuer opens the passenger side door. “Let’s go, kid. I have a schedule that didn’t include playing doctor and taking you to wherever you said you were going.”

Rey stands up straighter, refusing to be intimidated by this hulking, rude man and his carelessly expensive things. She stomps over to him, gritting her teeth when her jerky movements solicit complaints from her sorely abused limbs and some parts of her torso. When she thinks she sees him smirk, she resists the urge to elbow him in the ribs as she moves to enter the car.

“I didn’t say where I was going,” she points out coolly. “And it’s to Renwick’s Seat.”

The man tenses so suddenly that Rey jerks back, wondering what could possibly set him off about that. He turns towards her, a slow rotation that belies the renewed antagonism in his frame.

“You can’t possibly be Rey Niima,” he says flatly, all signs of civility gone. “I didn’t hire a goddamn _child.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updates will be every two weeks, also on Sundays. I'm trying to set a writing schedule where I finish my older fic first (and a long-unfinished fic from another fandom, hahahahuhuhu). 
> 
> I hope you like it so far! Feedback is fuel! And love! <3


	2. Arrangements

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To make up for the delay, an extra long chapter! 
> 
> **Specific Content Warnings:** Minor references to past child abuse, swearing, and unresolved sexual tension. So much unresolved sexual tension, haha.

“I’m hardly a child!” the girl sputters in protest, puffing up to about halfway up his chest. “What an appallingly ignorant thing to say!”

He’s not sure why, but Ben is caught off guard by the force of her reaction. It knocks the wind out of his own anger and he takes a careful step back before he can stop himself, his hands coming up, palms out. Then he remembers who he is and who he’s talking to, and he doubles down on his temperamental outburst.

“Sweetheart, I wouldn’t leave _you_ unsupervised, let alone in charge of my daughter,” he drawls sardonically, giving her a mocking once over. “I need a nanny, not a teenage babysitter.”

She looks it, God help him, and what does it say about him that her round little face and freckles are pushing all sorts of fucked up buttons in his head?

Said little face is now almost as red as her dress, and her tiny fists are balled up in fury. Her mouth opens and Ben knows she’s going to let him have it, his gut clenching in what he hopes to Jesus isn’t anticipation.

Except Ms. Niima _doesn’t_ let him have it. Not like he thought she would. Instead she squares her shoulders and takes a deep breath, looking him straight in the eye.

“Well, unfortunately for you, Mr. Solo,” she says in a _correct_ voice that sends a prickly little ball bouncing through his already taut stomach, “we have a binding agreement. However old you think I am, the fact of the matter is that I _am_ the nanny that you engaged. And for the record, I am _twenty-two.”_

She makes a show of hefting the little shoulder-strap purse she has at her side up, extracting a slim booklet that he realizes is her passport. She holds it out to him like it’s a crisp fifty and he’s a hobo asking for change, and the condescension in the gesture pisses him off so much that he snatches the passport forcefully from her hand.

He flips it open, processing the information that jumps out at him.

Rey Niima.

Westminster, United Kingdom.

10 April 1996.

“I can show you my state certification as a tutor,” she supplies when he doesn’t say anything. Ben glances up at her, ignoring the suggestion, and sees with some satisfaction that despite her calm exterior she’s nervous, her fingers gripping the strap of her bag tightly. No one likes having another person going through their personal information.

“Why haven’t you changed your citizenship?” he asks gruffly, genuinely curious but still angry with her. “I thought Maz said you’ve lived here for years.”

“Do you have a problem with immigrants, Mr. Solo?” she returns, brows lifting.

“ _What? No!”_ Offended, he tosses her passport back at her and she snatches at it clumsily and instinctively. It restores his good humour to see that he’s rattled her, too—there’s a scowl on her face again. “I was just wondering. But it’s fine if you don’t tell me. It’s not like we’ll be dealing with each other much in the future. Look, I’ll still get you cleaned up and I’ll drive you back to Maz’s, but you’re not working for me, kid.”

Ben turns back to his car, holding open the passenger-side door, and gives Ms. Niima a pointed look. She folds her arms over her flat chest—not that Ben was really looking at it—and gives him her own speaking glance.

“You’re _mistaken_ , Mr. Solo. I _signed_ a contract with Mrs. Phasma,” she enunciates in that cut-glass accent that makes him pause. It would be annoyingly attractive if she weren’t talking to him like he was a moron. “Your _agent._ We have an _agreement._ And last I checked, we never stipulated that you could fire me just because you don’t like my face. I have a copy of the contract with me if you’d like to review the grounds for ending my employment. _”_

“Contracts can be broken,” he growls, though Ben no longer knows why he’s fighting so hard. As aggravating as she’s been in all of the ten minutes he’s known her, a part of him that he’s trying very much to ignore doesn’t really want her to go away. In all fairness, she _is_ right: he _had_ taken her on, and it was due to his own careless assumptions that the reality of Rey Niima had taken him by surprise. Moreover—and the notion makes him grit his teeth in disgust and irritation—he _likes_ the reality of Rey Niima. A little bit too much. It irks him that she’s wilfully misinterpreting it. “And I never said that I didn’t like your face. I just said you looked too young.”

Her eyes narrow into flinty specs of golden green. “Well, at the rate we’re going, Mr. Solo, I’ll be prematurely grey before a year is up. Will that satisfy you?”

“Not really,” he mutters, before he can stop himself. Seeing her suddenly wide eyes, he thumps the side of the car door irritably. “ _Get in_ already, for fuck’s sake.”

“ _Stop_ swearing,” Ms. Niima snaps back, stomping over to his side. She continues to grouse grumpily. “First you try to kill me, then you try to fire me just because I _look_ young. I’m warning you, Mr. Solo: you get one more offense for today and then—as they say—you are _out.”_

_I could kiss you. How’s that for an offense?_

The thought pops up so suddenly in his mind that it’s practically instinct to follow the impulse. Ben leans down, intent, drawn in by the sulky jut of her lower lip and the hectic color in her round, freckled face. She glares up at him, practically reverberating with dislike, and she looks so much like a petulant child—whom Ben _still_ wants to kiss—that he recoils from the force of his self-loathing.

“You're not applying that metaphor correctly,” he says coolly, stepping aside so that she can get in. “Of the two of us, I’m the one with the power to decide whether _you’re in.”_

Ben slams the door shut before she can reply.

*

The drive to Renwick’s seat is mostly silent. Rey gasps every now and then, when her new employer takes a sharp turn too quickly or goes over a bump without slowing, and she grabs at the assist grip. The seatbelt has dug into her ribs several times before she deigns to give Ben Solo a look through slitted eyes.

“ _Must_ you drive so fast?” she asks in exasperation, glaring at the curve of his mouth suspiciously. It looks like he’s almost smiling. “We were both involved in a vehicular incident _literally_ five minutes ago.”

He shrugs. “In a rush to see my little girl.”

Rey can’t help the snort. “Indeed.”

He whips his face towards her and Rey presses herself back instinctively. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he snarls.

“I was agreeing with you!” Rey says a little wildly. He’s such a dizzyingly unbalanced creature that Rey pities his daughter and anyone who has to be around him. She makes a note to herself to hold her tongue, even when the urge to be sarcastic feels almost insurmountable.

Even though she hates herself for backing off, she does an internal victory dance when he pulls his eyes back to the road, a muscle ticking in his jaw. At least he isn’t enjoying himself anymore.

It’s the cherry on top of the weird sense of winning that the car moves at a more reasonable speed.

And Rey _is_ winning, despite her bloody, bruised state and the tinderbox tension with her new boss. She may have nearly been run over and then immediately gotten into it with Ben Solo, but she’s still employed and still on her way to ticking off her career goals for the year. The near-accident was shocking, and Mr. Solo was decidedly _not_ the kind of employer she’d hoped for, but in the long scheme of things, things are still going her way. She wraps herself in that comforting thought and pulls together her tattered dignity.

It’s the reason she doesn’t gasp when the house comes into view. Her mouth falls open slightly, but she recovers herself in time to school her reaction into something more decorous.

Renwick’s Seat looks exactly like it sounds: a sprawling Georgian-style mansion that might have been built on the ruins of another building. The sun warms the grey sandstone and flashes off of what looks like hundreds of panes of polished glass. She spots hints of what looks like blue limestone in what could have been the older parts of the structure. Rey leans forward despite herself, squinting to get a better look. She’s seen a lot of grand houses, despite her unfortunate origins—she _is_ from _England_ —but her heart thrums with renewed excitement at the realization that _she’s_ _going to work here._

“I take it that you and Phasma didn’t meet here when you signed that contract.”

Rey shakes her head, still mute, and Mr. Solo gets his eyes back on the road, an undeniable smile playing on his mouth. There’s something about his posture, too—he’s sitting much straighter, his massive chest held much higher—but Rey can’t hold it against him. She’d brag, too, if she owned a place like this.

They drive past a pair of heavy wrought iron gates that swing open smoothly as the car approaches, perhaps prompted by whatever security team is watching them through the cameras perched along the ten-foot walls. The winding drive up to the house is lined with red maples but little else. Whoever had built the house on the little plateau had apparently been determined to have a clear view of his or her surroundings—or had perhaps been determined to have the imposing house be seen.

Rey slides a look towards Mr. Solo, trying not to smirk at how well he seems to fit the profile: wanting to see everything and simultaneously demanding to be seen. In another life, she imagines he’d have made a fantastic emperor—strong, bold, and just crazy enough to amass and wield power. She still wouldn’t like him, but his personality would have at least fit the times.

The house is even more splendid up close, rows of well-manicured flowering shrubs sitting around it like a glorious skirt. The car crunches up the cream brick paving of the circular driveway and Rey spots Mrs. Phasma standing on the front porch. Dressed in white and framed by the ivory columns on either side, her blonde hair perfectly coiffed, she looks so much like a Greek statue that Rey goggles for a full five seconds even after the car has come to a stop.

“Come on, kid,” Mr. Solo prompts, back to being brusque, and Rey scrambles to unlock her seatbelt and follow him when he climbs out of the car.

Mrs. Phasma’s coming down the steps to meet them, a wide smile on her face.

“Oh, Ms. Niima, wonderful! Your baggage arrived yesterday and _—oh my goodness!”_

Rey tries not to cringe in embarrassment. Mrs. Phasma’s blue eyes go wide as they take her in. She’s done her best not to think about what she looks like. Her years with Maz have fine-tuned her self-awareness, and she knows that once she gives in to her self-consciousness she’ll crumple into the same pathetic, whimpering little ball she’d been when Maz had first taken her in. So she forces herself to stand straighter, to smile even though her face is burning and she feels like a fraud.

“We ran into a bit of an accident on the way, Phas,” Mr. Solo is saying in that flat, cool tone that only bosses know how to use. It works like it's supposed to on Mrs. Phasma, who promptly buttons her lip and nods like she understands everything from that simple sentence alone. “Take care of Ms. Niima and send Kaydel to see me. I’ll be in my office.”

“Yes, Sir,” Mrs. Phasma replies, taking Rey by the arm gingerly, her eyes on the ripped sleeve and the ruined skin underneath.

Rey opens her mouth to thank Mr. Solo, out of sheer politeness and nothing else, but he’s already striding into the house, his broad back to her. She clamps her mouth shut and forces herself to smile at Mrs. Phasma, refusing to examine the sting in her chest at the obvious dismissal.

*

Mrs. Phasma talks about the house as she leads Rey through, promising to give her a more detailed tour after Rey has settled in. Rey tries to absorb the details, her heart thumping a little wildly, her neck hurting from all the swivelling around that her head is doing. Nine bedroom suites. Nine bathrooms. Two half-baths. Wine cellar. Fitness complex. In-home theatre. Formal ballroom. Two-story library.

Rey perks up at that last one, a vision of herself climbing ladders to replace books and singing inane lines from _Beauty and the Beast_ filling her head, but Mrs. Phasma proceeds to inform her that Mr. Solo’s study opens up into the library and Rey deflates immediately.

“The other adjoining room was a game room,” she continues, oblivious to Rey’s pouting, “but Mr. Solo had it refurbished into a schoolroom when Ms. Kaydel came along. The game room is in the new den, next to the wine cellar now.”

“Considerate of him,” Rey remarks sourly, but the sarcasm flies over Mrs. Phasma’s head.

“Very,” she agrees crisply. “Most men would never make accommodations for a child, much less . . .” She clears her throat a little uncomfortably. “Well, it was very considerate.”

Rey frowns at the back of the woman’s head. She’s heard a little of Kaydel’s story from Maz and she imagines that it’s complicated. Broken families always are. The fact that Kaydel’s mother had recently passed in a tragic accident makes the situation even more delicate. The condescension and callousness in Mrs. Phasma’s words—heavily concealed though they are—pull at Rey’s personal triggers.

She pushes down the defensiveness, reminding herself that some people just don’t know what to do with children. It isn’t personal. It’s not like Mrs. Phasma knows that she’s talking to a former junk rat foster kid who had been lucky enough to fall in with the likes of Maz Kanata.

They reach the room that Mrs. Phasma had picked for Rey and any lingering resentment melts away as she steps into the suite. It’s all pale blue and white, accented by warm caramel tones. There’s a queen-sized canopy bed made of white wood, the pattern of flowering trees on the white spread matching the white pattern on of the pastel blue wallpaper. Like the rest of the house, it looks like a page straight out of _Architectural Digest_ —except that this is really going to be _hers._ Rey walks into the center of the room, spinning slowly and trying not to fall onto her butt.

Mrs. Phasma had apparently unpacked for her because she bustles about Rey’s room, pulling open drawers and fishing out clothes. If she notices Rey’s paralyzing wonder, she takes it in stride. “We’ll have to get you out of those clothes, of course,” she says briskly. “Why don’t you take your clothes off, Ms. Niima, while I go get the first aid kit?”

Before Rey can reply, she hurries into what Rey assumes is the bathroom, the wide white door swinging closed behind her. Rey does as she’s told, swallowing the discomfort of being exposed to a virtual stranger. Before she’d come into Maz’s care, she’d had to live with many children in the homes. Modesty was a luxury she hadn’t been able to afford.

Mercifully, Mrs. Phasma doesn’t seem to care much about Rey’s body beyond having to patch it up. She doesn’t smirk or make pitying noises about her boyish shape or her decided lack of breasts. It’s almost always the reaction Rey gets when she’s undressed around other women, so she breathes a sigh of relief when Mrs. Phasma applies her critical eye and light hands to Rey’s injuries.

“When do you think I can meet Kaydel?” Rey asks at length, trying to distract herself when Mrs. Phasma begins picking debris from her scrapes, the needlepoint tweezers in her hand making Rey sweat more profusely than the actual frissons of pain.

“Mr. Solo will surely ask you to join them for lunch. They always share meals when Mr. Solo is here, unless there’s some pressing business he needs to attend to.”

Rey purses her lips, disliking the prospect of meeting her charge for the first time with said charge’s insufferable father in the room. Given their recent interaction, he’d likely provoke her and she’d make a terrible impression on a child at a very impressionable age. Her hands ball into fists in her lap as she grimly resolves not to let him get to her. Their first meeting had been unfortunate, but their succeeding ones didn’t need to be.

For once, Mrs. Phasma picks up on Rey’s tension. Perhaps it’s the way Rey’s sitting, spine ramrod straight, only her toes flexing in reaction to the antiseptic that Mrs. Phasma’s applying liberally to Rey’s knees.

“You won’t have cause to complain much around here, Ms. Niima,” Mrs. Phasma assures her with some amusement. “Even if Mr. Solo vexes you, he’ll hardly ever be around.”

Rey wants to say that his absence may be part of the problem, but bites back the words. It isn’t her place to deal with the cause of Kaydel’s misbehaviour—she’s just there to make sure that whatever Kaydel might feel, she doesn’t act out. She has a job precisely because people like Ben Solo can’t care for their own children.

And if she’s honest, being around Mr. Solo makes her jumpy in her own skin, and Rey has no place for that kind of feeling.

“I’m sure we’ll manage, however often he’s here,” Rey says with forced brightness. For some reason, it feels like she’s uttering famous last words.

*

As Mrs. Phasma had predicted, Rey is called down for lunch. Rey tries to familiarize herself with the route from her room to the formal dining room, where she’s told the family eats when Mr. Solo is in, but gives up after several hallways and corridors. Mrs. Phasma is quiet, almost subdued, and Rey wonders if something has happened or she’s just picking up on Rey’s own nerves.

She does smile when she opens the door to the dining room, her blue eyes alight with something that looks like amusement but is a little too sharp. Rey doesn’t return the look, too preoccupied with smoothing out non-existent wrinkles from the front of her second-best dress. It’s high-necked and long-sleeved, tea-length and blush-colored, and it thankfully covers almost all of her injuries from earlier. She’s rearranged her hair in a simple, low twist, and put on lipstick, hoping the touches make her look older. She tells herself it isn’t for Mr. Solo’s sake, but for Kaydel’s.

Mr. Solo looks up as she walks in, but doesn’t stand, and the nonchalance of his expression already annoys her. She nods at him in cool acknowledgment and immediately turns her attention to the little girl who’s pulled herself from her seat and come around the table to face her.

“This is Rey Niima, Kaydel.” Mr. Solo has the grace to introduce her, but she dislikes the way her name rolls of his tongue. It feels indecent somehow, and the undercurrent of mockery in his voice doesn’t help. “She’s your babysitter.”

“Nanny _and_ tutor,” Rey corrects crisply, not looking at him. She smiles as warmly as she can as her charge patters forward a few more steps. “Hello Kaydel.”

For a moment Rey wonders what the girl’s mother must have looked like, because there is almost nothing of her father in Kaydel’s soft, wispy blonde prettiness. Then she raises her dark eyes to Rey’s, and Rey gets a jolt from the intensity in them. Her rather thin lips curve and reveal a brilliant smile—pretty, but sharp.

“Hello,” she says, voice soft but certainly not meek. She sticks her small hand out. “It’s nice to meet you, Ms. Niima.”

“It’s nice to meet you, too,” Rey returns, taking Kaydel’s hand, amused and a little impressed by her firm grip. “I’m not late, am I?”

Father and daughter answer at the same time.

“No, we just sat down when you arrived.”

“It depends on whether you like to have your meals on time.”

At the latter statement, from Mr. Solo, Rey merely raises a brow, refusing to be baited. She smiles as Kaydel tugs on her sleeve and leads her to her seat. It only flusters Rey a little to find that it’s on Mr. Solo’s right. There’s a bowl of steaming soup at her place already, along with some bread rolls, and Rey’s stomach clamors so noisily that she claps her hands over it as she hastily sits down.

Mr. Solo smirks but doesn’t have the chance to torment her for it because Kaydel is already asking her questions.

“What time will we start our lessons, Ms. Niima? And do we have to take them inside? It’s a nice day out.”

Rey smiles at her eagerness, even though her fingers are tearing up a bread roll in preparation for stuffing her face. (Daintily, of course.) “There are a few things I need to know before we start, Kaydel. I have a few exams for you to take this afternoon, then you’ll have tomorrow off, for the most part. We’ll start officially on Monday.”

“You want to assess what level I’m at,” Kaydel sums up, nodding. It surprises Rey that she doesn’t complain about having to take tests—most children would. “I don’t think I’m far behind, but I guess we’ll see.”

There’s a shrewdness in Kaydel’s direct gaze and a briskness to her tone that Rey likes, though she can imagine that some might find it disconcerting in an eleven-year-old. She holds herself with a kind of confidence most adults—Rey included—would kill to have, and Rey admires her self-possession even as she notes why it could be a problem.

Mrs. Phasma comes in with the next few courses and Kaydel demonstrates why she can be difficult. No, Kaydel does not like vegetables. No, she can’t chew any faster. Who decided that courses had to be finished within a certain time anyway? Why aren’t there any chicken nuggets? She wants chicken nuggets at lunch. No, she can’t eat any more, even if it’s good for her. Rey has known picky eaters before, but she’s never encountered anyone being picky when faced with _good_ food.

Mr. Solo’s mood darkens as the meal progresses and he’s visibly irritated by his daughter’s eating habits. When Kaydel picks at her dessert—a lavish chocolate mousse that Rey practically inhales—with a long-suffering expression on her face like she’s being punished, Mr. Solo tosses his napkin on the table and stands abruptly, his own dessert half-finished.

“It’s after one,” he snaps, and Kaydel puts her fork down, eyes lowered. “I’ll be in my office until dinner.” His eyes find Rey’s. “Don’t give her any snacks, since she says she’s full.”

He strides out before Rey can reply. Rey immediately looks towards Kaydel. Her charge appears composed, but her grip on her fork is so tight that the knuckles of her hand are white. Her eyes are still lowered.

Rey clears her throat, forcing her rioting thoughts into a semblance of calm. There’s a lot to process now that she knows a little more, but she can’t exactly disappear into her room to ponder while there’s a distressed child in her care.

“Come along, Kaydel,” she says brightly, standing up. She doesn’t blink when Kaydel raises her rather misty eyes to Rey’s. “I like to take short walks after my meals, when I can. I think we can spare half an hour before your tests. It’s a nice day out, isn’t it?”

Kaydel stares for a second before a sweet smile blooms on her face, transforming it completely. “It is,” she agrees, slowly getting to her feet.

“You can show me the grounds,” Rey suggests, offering her hand.

It feels like another victory when Kaydel takes it and leads her out.

*

Rose Tico calls just as Rey’s finishing her assessment of Kaydel’s current level. For her age, she isn’t far behind, and given what Rey’s observed so far, it won’t take much to get Kaydel up to speed. After their little restorative walk, Kaydel had breezed through the assessments with the same calm self-assurance that Rey had first noticed about her. Rey would have liked to start in on the checking the assessments right after, but Kaydel had insisted that Rey tell her about Rosley Hall until it was almost dinner-time. 

“You didn’t call,” Rose says at once in a scolding tone that makes Rey laugh and roll her eyes. She can imagine the stern expression on Rose’s doll-like face. A wave of sentimentality rolls through her. They’d parted only months before, at graduation, but already it feels like a decade. Now Rose is in the big city, working with an organization that rescues and assists trafficked children, and Rey’s in someone’s giant mansion, playing Fran. It’s bizarre how quickly things can shift.

“I said I’d call as soon as I got a free moment,” Rey points out, fighting the piercing loneliness. One of her first lessons as a child was that you only cried when there was something tangible to cry about. She twiddles her red pen as she skims over her notes. She’s sure she can finish her proposed lesson plan by morning and run it by Mr. Solo after breakfast. He hadn’t been at dinner, which Rey has strangely mixed feelings about. “I literally just got a free moment two seconds ago.”

“Well, _spill_ already then! How are things?”

Without thinking, Rey replies: “I almost got run over this morning.”

It’s downhill from there, with Rose shrieking painfully and unintelligibly for a good minute before Rey can talk her down to a manageable level of panic. By the time she sketches out an abbreviated version of her first meeting with Mr. Solo, the tense lunch with Kaydel, and the rest of the day, she can already see Rose shaking her head on the other line.

“Are you sure you don’t want to back out?” Rose asks, and it’s in that kind of tone that tells Rey she’s ready to jump into her car and pick her up if Rey says yes. “It sounds like he doesn’t want you there and he sounds like enough of a colossal jerk to make sure that you regret staying.”

She’s thought about it enough times that day to have an answer ready. “I committed to finishing a year here,” Rey replies steadily, even though her stomach turns with nerves at the thought. Three-hundred and sixty-four more days is a long time. “Mr. Solo won’t be around much, from what I’ve seen and heard. And I like Kaydel. I want to help her.”

Rose makes a grudging noise. “It is a pretty sweet deal when you don’t think about the dickhead dad. But keep me posted, okay? If I don’t hear from you every week, I’ll blame him. I’ll drive up there and bust you out.”

“He’s hardly holding me prisoner here, Rose,” Rey laughs, partly because she knows Rose is dead-serious. And because thinking or talking about Mr. Solo feels too much like an unholy temptation, she forces a subject change and asks about Rose’s job.

It’s an effective distraction, and Rey spends the next half hour scribbling out her notes to the sound of Rose’s animated discussion on all the evils that people are capable of. That she’s only half-listening doesn’t make her feel guilty. Rey doesn’t need to be told about how children can be mistreated.

She has enough memories of her own to know.

*

Ben squeezes the bridge of his nose, taking a deep breath and resisting the urge to go digging for another aspirin. He’s had three already and it’s only six in the morning. He resists the urge to swear, in case Kaydel is lingering somewhere in the corridor, when the deep-breathing techniques that his mother had insisted he learn fail to ease the pounding around his temples and the relentless squeeze over his forehead.

Sundays are a _bitch._

Though to be fair, the rest of his days aren’t much better. And the shitstorm he’s currently in had popped up on his radar the afternoon before, heralded by a phone call from Armitage Hux. Ben regularly daydreams about the day when he can fire Hux, but since Hux is his COO—“and the only one who ever thinks things through in this godforsaken company”—when he brings something to Ben’s attention, Ben’s learned to listen to him. Sure, he’ll smash a few bottles and yell at a few people in the vicinity, but he’ll listen to Hux.

So if Hux tells him he has to be in the office on a Sunday afternoon to get briefed in time for a teleconference with Shanghai at five o’clock, Ben knows he’s going to do it.

Even if it means having to miss the Sunday brunch and the ride that he’d promised Kaydel they’d have. Ben grinds his teeth, wishing he hadn’t sent Mrs. Phasma off on another errand so soon. He wants to lay into her about her idiotic suggestion that he wake Kaydel before leaving. Now she’s lost a few crucial hours of sleep and he’s stuck with the look on her face when he’d told her that they’d have to postpone their plans.

There’s a knock at his door and Ben growls for them to come in, hoping it’s one of the maids with his second cup of coffee.

Instead it’s Rey Niima stepping into his office, dressed in a crisp white dress and looking daisy-fresh, and Ben jerks upright, scowl ready for her. It looks like Ms. Niima’s a morning person, and Ben adds it to the reasons he can’t stand her. It doesn’t help that she meets his forbidding look with a cool stare that still manages to brim with hostility.

“Mrs. Phasma said you asked for me,” she says flatly, instead of greeting him good morning like a decent human being.

“Yeah, like in another half hour or so,” Ben snaps, feeling completely at a disadvantage when her eyes rove over him, brows knitting together in clear disapproval. He’d been up half the night, arguing with Hux and half a dozen other people, and when he’d gotten up he’d been so groggy that he’d cut himself while shaving. He doesn’t feel like he’s at his best, and he’s sure he doesn’t look it. “Didn’t you sleep? Why the hell are you up so early?”

Her lips purse—he’s beginning to realize it’s her way of showing disapproval—but her expression softens. It’s subtle, like a flicker and a change in the light, but she walks forward and he notices for the first time that she’s holding papers in her hands.

“No, actually,” she says quietly, and despite himself Ben feels his simmering temper settle. “I don’t sleep very well in new places, so I was already up when Mrs. Phasma knocked.”

It still annoys him that she can look so good despite apparently not getting much sleep, but he likes that she can admit vulnerability. Or does he? It’s hard to tell when it makes him want to grab at her and cuddle her—and the impulse terrifies him. It was a stupid idea to let her work for him, he should have booted her out the minute Phasma had fixed her up—

“Mr. Solo?”

Ms. Niima’s slightly bent over the front of his desk, looking at him with concern, and he tears his eyes away from hers. They settle on the golden skin of her neck, on that subtle dip between her collar bones, right above her prim white collar, and he jerks back against his unyielding chair.

“Where’s my fucking coffee?” he barks, feeling a measure of calm when she straightens into a rigid line.

Her eyes are blazing with fury, but she doesn’t shout the way he would, or scamper away from him the way most people do. “I can go check on it while you look over my lesson plan,” she offers tightly, her voice low.

“Lesson plan?”

She sighs heavily, waving at his desk. Ben looks down and sees that the papers that were in her hand are laid out in front of him.

“I’ll go check on that coffee,” Ms. Niima says as he picks up a sheet, staring at her neat handwriting. She mutters her next words under her breath, but he hears her. “You obviously need it.”

It’s a dire sign that her sullen comeback makes him smile. Ben lifts the paper higher so that it’s hiding his face, and it takes him a few minutes to realize that his head’s no longer aching.

*

Rey takes a deep breath before the study doors, wrangling her rioting emotions into a semblance of order. The silver coffee service clinks on the tray she’s holding and she looks down to see her hands shaking. She lets the air out in a sigh, allowing her posture to loosen slightly, and smiles to herself when the motion triggers a wave of calm. She won’t spill coffee all over her dress, at the very least.

She may well throw the tray and coffee at Ben Solo’s head, but she won’t stain her white dress.

He had some nerve, summoning her at sunrise and then snapping at her for being prompt. She hadn’t been feeling very well—she’s all jitters when she doesn’t get much sleep—but she’d dutifully dressed herself up and gone down to meet him, eager to talk about Kaydel’s lessons. She’s a morning person and she likes to swing straight into her day. After all, the more you do, the more gets done—and the way had Rey felt, she’d wanted her day to be done.

_Speaking of which . . ._

She squares her shoulders and balances the tray on her hip so she can knock. She can hate Ben Solo later, after they’ve spoken and she’s back in her room. Standing around in hallways, trying to pull herself together, is only dragging things out.

Her stomach does a funny little flop when Mr. Solo looks up. Rey ignores it, willing herself _not_ to blush as she enters and shuts the door with her foot, meeting his rapt stare as steadily as she can. He really is unfairly good-looking, especially in the early morning light pouring through the mullioned glass windows. It even helps that he looks tired, the grooves of tension on his face and the shadows under his eyes making her soften towards him against her will. There’s a nick on his chin that she wants to stick a band-aid on.

It’s also a factor that he isn’t glaring at her anymore and almost looks happy to see her.

Rey brushes the thought aside, annoyed with herself. He’s happy to see the coffee.

She sets the tray down on his desk, peeking up as she leans over, and sees that the papers of her proposed lesson plan have been stacked up neatly in front of Mr. Solo. Either he’d read them or he’d been waiting for her to get back so she could discuss them again. He hadn’t been listening when she’d tried the first time. Before she can ask, she catches his smirk.

“Oh, are you joining me?” he asks, all sharp teeth and cruelly laughing eyes.

Rey jerks back, stung, and humiliation flows through her when she realizes her presumption. She’d run into Mrs. Phasma while she’d been wandering around trying to find the kitchen, and she hadn’t thought twice about the two settings on the coffee service she’d been carrying. Rey had simply assumed—

“I’m sorry,” she begins, mortified and further humbled by the dark look on Mr. Solo’s face. “I didn’t think—”

“ _Jesus Christ,”_ he swears, palm smacking the table in exasperation so that she jumps with an embarrassing little squeak. “I was teasing, for fuck’s sake. Sit down and pour the damn coffee.”

Rey glares at him, wanting to yank at his stupidly perfect hair. For some reason the openly angry look makes him grin, and she shakes her head in befuddlement at her obviously unstable employer.

“I really wish you’d stop swearing,” she grumbles, seating herself and reaching for the coffee pot.

“Too real for your precious ears, sweetheart?” he sneers, laughing outright when Rey loses her battle with her blush at the endearment. “Geez, kid, give me a break.”

Rey forces herself to look at him sternly when she really wants—bizarrely—to stick her tongue out at him. He laughs again, and she can almost forgive him for laughing at her, because laughter makes him absolutely beautiful, the harsh planes of his face relaxing and his eyes turning positively velvety. She pushes his coffee towards him, inwardly wincing at the clatter it makes, and distracts herself with pouring her own cup.

“Did you read my lesson plan?” Rey asks, trying not to die as she feels her blush spread and deepen underneath his amused stare. Even her ears feel hot now.

“Mmm.” He’s sipping at his coffee, eyes dancing. After a healthy swallow, he taps on the sheets. “Why is math the first thing she has for each day?”

Rey sips at her own coffee before replying, trying not to scrunch her face up at the bitter tang. She’s surprised her insides aren’t smoking from the acidity.

“She isn’t doing so well in math,” she explains, coughing a little and setting down her cup. She’ll choke down the rest later, maybe in her room, when he isn’t there to laugh. “I think it’s because she doesn’t enjoy it. In my experience, it helps to put the difficult things that we don’t enjoy first. Our minds are still fresh first thing in the morning, and even if we’re feeling sluggish, doing something we find hard forces us to focus.”

To his credit, his expression grows serious as he listens to her. He flips through the sheets until he comes to the very last. “So you have science as her last subject because she’s good at it and enjoys it?”

Rey nods, smiling as she remembers. “She finished the assessment test in fifteen minutes and she scored perfectly. It’s clearly her best subject. If I put it first, she’ll either not want to move on or have zero interest in anything that comes after.”

Mr. Solo flips through the sheets again, asking the odd question here and there— _“ ‘Art Appreciation’—really?”_ —but doesn’t outright object. Rey answers him a little defensively, feeling for the first time that she may be just a little bit out of her depth.

“You should stretch out her language and writing class by half an hour,” he says in conclusion, pushing the stack of papers towards her. “If she learns to write half as well as you, it’ll be a miracle.”

The compliment is tossed out so carelessly that Rey blinks in response, though it sparks a glow of what she hopes is only gratitude inside her chest. “I’m sure she’ll be up to it,” Rey says with more hope than confidence, recalling Kaydel’s messy scrawl. She’d squinted almost all the way through the checking process. “All of us learn, don’t we?”

Mr. Solo’s shrug is careless. “I didn’t. My writing is shit.”

“So is your language.”

Rey claps a hand over her mouth even as Mr. Solo throws his head back and roars with laughter. For one terrifying moment she expects him to stop laughing and tell her that she’s fired—unprofessional conduct _is_ one of the stipulated grounds for terminating her employment—but when his laughter trickles down to a few wheezy chuckles, his expression is relaxed and not a little suggestive.

“Are you offering to teach me to speak properly, Ms. Niima?” he drawls, and Rey has no idea what to say to him. She feels lost but exhilarated, off-kilter but excited, and so confused that she wants to scuttle away to the safety of her room and scream into a pillow.

She takes refuge in cold anger. “I’m not sure that you’re not a lost cause, Mr. Solo,” she says coolly.

Mr. Solo’s eyes widen fractionally before they narrow, and Rey knows that she’s ruined his inexplicably good mood—and she inwardly swats at the prickle of remorse. His jaw tenses and he takes another long drink from his coffee. “I’m sure you’re right,” he says at length, looking away.

“Do you approve of the lesson plan, then?” Rey asks. She finds herself trying to catch his gaze now that he seems determined not to look at her. It’s just rude not to look at someone you’re speaking with.

“It’s fine. I want a progress report on how she’s doing at the end of the month.”

Rey sags a little, with relief, and smiles despite the horrible tension crackling in the room. His words imply that she’ll be there for at least a month. She babbles like she always does when she’s uncomfortable and trying to ease herself.

“Of course, Sir, though standard assessment periods are quarterly. I can prepare short reports for you. If you’ll notice, I scheduled a session today for setting expectations and goals. Kaydel’s still asleep, but when she wakes up, I think you should join us when I—”

“She’s probably still going back to bed.” Mr. Solo’s tone is flat when he interrupts her. “I got her up before you so we could talk before I went back to town.”

Rey stares for a full five seconds. “You’re heading back already?”

“Yes, Ms. Niima.” His tone is terse. When he finally looks at her, his scornful expression cuts her so deeply and unexpectedly that she shrinks back. “I’m a busy man, remember? It’s why you have a job.”

“I—of course.” It’s all she knows how to say, it seems. Rey’s face is already reddening again and her chest is constricting as she tries to identify where the insult in those words is, exactly. She knows it’s there, knows he means to demean her, but she doesn’t know how to parry the sting. She clears her throat after a few painful seconds and decides to beat a hasty retreat. “Well, I won’t take up much more of your time. If you’ll—”

“Finish your coffee before you go,” he commands, and Rey is rattled enough to just do as he says, gulping down half her cup even though it wants to make her gag.

She thinks he may have huffed a laugh, but when Rey looks up through watering eyes his face is expressionless.

Except for his eyes.

“By the way,” Mr. Solo adds, his casual tone belied by the intensity of his stare, “you’re free to use my office while you’re here.”

Rey coughs at that. “Excuse me?”

“I like that you write things down.” Mr. Solo fingers the edges of her lesson plan idly. “But you can use my computer. Or maybe you have a laptop with you that we can hook up to the network?”

No, she doesn’t. She hasn’t been able to afford one. Most things she can do with her phone, and when she’d really needed a computer in the past she’d had access to them at Rosley Hall or the community college. She suddenly hates herself for not thinking about how quaint it was to submit a handwritten lesson plan.

“You can keep writing though, if that’s what you prefer.” He’s so serious that Rey wonders wildly if he’s being kind, if he’s hiding his pity. At her continued silence, he bristles. “Look, do whatever you want, okay? I’m just trying to tell you that you’re welcome here.”

Rey jumps to her feet, unable to bear any more, her head bobbing. “Okay. I’ll prepare reports for you and I’ll . . . I’ll use your office when you’re not here.”

He nods, satisfied, but there’s a new heaviness in his gaze that makes Rey want to squirm. “Is that all, Ms. Niima?” he asks, but there’s so much in the way he looks at her that Rey knows he isn’t just asking about reports and where she was supposed to set up shop. She’s too keyed up to process the rest of what she reads in his eyes.

“Yes Sir,” she replies with as much dignity as she can muster, tilting her chin up and forcing her spine to straighten in defiance of the urge to cringe away in embarrassment. When he continues to just _look_ at her, she backs away, casting a hand back a little clumsily until she touches the doorknob. “I’ll let you know if anything comes up within the week. Excuse me.”

She yanks the door open and bolts, but not before she hears his quiet, terrifying parting shot.

“I’ll see you on Friday, Rey.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Full disclosure: I wrote this Ben Solo as being a bit more like Han in demeanor than he would like to admit. 
> 
> Merry Christmas!


End file.
